Israel pressed its war to crush Hamas on Sunday nearly a month after the worst attack in the country’s history, as the Palestinian group said strikes on a central Gaza refugee camp killed dozens.
Fighting continues to rage in densely populated Gaza, despite calls for a ceasefire from Arab countries and desperate civilians after 30 days of war.
Since a shock Hamas attack on October 7, which Israeli officials say has killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians, Israel has bombarded the besieged Gaza Strip.
This picture released by the Israeli army on November 5, 2023, shows Israel tanks inside the Gaza Strip as battles between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement continue. (Photo by Israeli Army / AFP
The health ministry in Gaza, which is run by Hamas, says more than 9,480 Gazans, mostly women and children, have been killed in Israeli strikes and the intensifying ground campaign.
Since Israel sent troops into the narrow Palestinian territory late last month, “over 2,500 terror targets have been struck” by “ground, air and naval forces”, the army said on Sunday.
In a statement, it said ground soldiers were engaged in “close-quarters combat” as Israeli jets were striking targets including a “Hamas military compound” at an undisclosed location overnight.
In the latest onslaught in Gaza, the Hamas-run health ministry said an Israeli bombing on the Al-Maghazi refugee camp late Saturday killed 30 people, with an eyewitness reporting children dead and homes smashed.
“An Israeli air strike targeted my neighbours’ house in Al-Maghazi camp, my house next door partially collapsed,” said Mohammed Alaloul, 37, a journalist working for the Turkish Anadolu Agency.
Alaloul told AFP his 13-year-old son, Ahmed, and his four-year-old son, Qais, were killed in the bombing, along with his brother. His wife, mother, and two other children were injured.
A military spokesperson said they were looking into whether their forces had been operating in the area at the time of the bombing.
Evacuations halted
More than 240 Israeli and foreign hostages were abducted by Hamas during the October 7 attack, officials say, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rebuffed proposals of a truce until the Islamist group releases them all.
Israel on Thursday said it had struck 12,000 targets across Gaza during the war, one of the fiercest bombing campaigns in recent memory.
Hamas said in a statement posted on Telegram that Israel had “directly” bombed civilian homes, adding that most of the dead were women and children.
As the war ground into its fifth week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to continue his Middle East tour Sunday with a visit to Turkey, where Ankara has hardened its tone against Israel and its Western supporters with the death toll in Gaza surging.
Blinken faced a rising tide of anger in meetings with Arab foreign ministers in Jordan on Saturday, where he reaffirmed US support for “humanitarian pauses” to ensure desperate civilians get help, a day after Netanyahu gave the idea short shrift.
AFP
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